Testimonials

Aimee Smith

Ultimate Love: A Life of Soul and Searching by Kitty Caley

I would like to thank you for sharing your book with me Kitty. It was an honor to read it. From the first page to the last it is very apparent you and Chip meant the world to each other. Chip was a very special person although his life was short he touched a lot of hearts. This book does an excellent job at catching his character. As I read through his childhood I felt as I was growing with him. He was surrounded by a great circle of love.

His Grandmothers, Jerry, and Rhonda clearly had a special place in their hearts for Chip. I know he was disappointed by his father, but I think his family and friends did a great job at filling that void. I think his father leaving hurt Chip quite a bit; but I also feel this strongly shaped his character. Like in every aspect of his life, Chip chose the positive. He did not let one negative relationship bring him down. He realized his father’s flaws were just that. They were his father’s not his. He may have been disappointed but he chose to look on the bright side and focus on the people who loved him. He built an incredible strength wrapped in a sunny personality that would carry him through the good times and the hard times. In the book by the time Chip is an adult you feel like you know him, in fact you love him like a brother. He is funny and charming with a great a sense of style! It’s no wonder he became a top realtor in Dallas living a great life full of family and friends. When Chip starts having his first symptoms of AIDS it’s heartbreaking. You know it’s coming but still you wish you could just make it better for him. For such a strong person to have a breakdown you get a very small sample of how bitterly cruel AIDS is. At the time this was an unknown symptom of AIDS. Kitty is now becoming the strong one. She helps Chip find himself again. Your heart will ache for both of them trying to find their way through uncharted waters. Chip was a pioneer of AIDS.

Everything at that time was experimental. You see them draw strength from each other while trying and failing different methods of treatment. You laugh and cry with them through the stages of this terrible disease. AIDS may have ended Chip’s life but he never lost his strength or personality and somehow stayed positive until the end. Kitty grew in strength and courage throughout the worst heartbreak imaginable. She used that strength to continue to help AIDS victims. Chip would be proud! Thank you for sharing Chip’s story with me Thank you again for sharing your story with me. Chip still lives through this book and what an amazing person he is.

Esther Norton

Ultimate Love by Kitty Caley is a true story, a story of a son and his mother who had such a bond since Chip was born and it continued throughout his life. Kitty’s support and devoted unconditional love to Chip is something I admire very much. I also have two boys and I very much understand the beautiful bond and relationship we mothers develop with our sons. I never met Chip, but after reading the book, I feel like I knew him. He is so likable, I love the way Kitty brought him to life to us the readers who never had the opportunity to meet him.

The pictures in the book of Chip, Kitty and other family members and or friends are so telling the description Kitty wrote of Chip truly matches the way Chip was; polite, obedient, professional, and loving. I admire Kitty for having written this book about Chip, she kept details and a perfect recollection of events especially through the really hard times of Chip’s illness. As I read the book, I felt like I was there. Her undivided attention and dedication to nurse him truly matches the title of the book “Ultimate Love”.

Kitty is a very strong person and has missed Chip so much all this time he has been gone. She talks about him all the time. She never misses his birthdays, holidays, and important milestones. Kitty and I understand each other very well; I also have a sweet son Derek who passed away at the age of 22 yrs. old in a single car accident on March 6, 2006. We often talk and compare our “feelings and pain” of losing children. We know that we didn’t lose them; we both know that we will be reunited with them in the next life and we know it will be the most amazing reunion. I don’t’ know if Kitty knew at the time of Chip’s illness that she would be writing a book about his life, but it is so amazing how detailed and accurate her account is, and what a wonderful tribute this book is to Chip.

With love, Esther Norton

Theresa Thompson

Aunt Kitty,

I have read your book in the last 3 weeks. You are a lovely Mother with a big beautiful heart. Chipper is so, so lucky having you as his mother. You gave him a good life. I am so sorry I wasn’t there for those sad times. Your book is truthfully Ultimate Love and beautiful. Thank You. Keep that love.

Your niece, Theresa Thompson

Robert Honstein

In her book, Ultimate Love: A Life of Soul and Searching, Kitty Caley courageously opens her home and heart by sharing some of the intimate details of the precious life of her son, Chip. In doing so, she unconsciously causes us to reflect upon our own deeds and less upon the deeds of her son which led to his tragic death from AIDS. At first glance, one learns that the book is about a homosexual young man who dies of AIDS; consequently, one may conclude that his demise was his own doing. However, as one reads further into the book, one finds himself much like the outraged accusers who stood ready to condemn and stone the adulterous woman in the New Testament account. As these accusers listened to the Savior’s admonition that he who is without sin should cast the first stone, one by one, each accuser was compelled to drop his stone and examine his own life. The truths shared by Kitty in her book cause critics and accusers to re-examine themselves and drop their stones.

In particular, Kitty’s words are especially poignant in unmasking the sins of a father. As Kitty describes the layers of wounds and scars left behind by Chip’s father through his years of neglect and absence, one feels compelled to accept and love every child who has wandered far from heaven and home. This book is about the love and compassion of God that mothers so naturally mimic and replicate.

For men, the book serves as a reminder that they are also needed in the nurturing and rearing of children. It portrays the need for men to abandon their natural tendencies to be selfish and prideful. It calls on men to learn from their children and become submissive, meek, humble, patient, and full of love and to commit themselves to joyfully suffering and caring for their children each and every day.

As a therapist working with offenders, I often witness the negative effects of the absence of fathers in the lives of children. I’ve frequently seen young men turn to guns and drugs to compensate for the vulnerability and heartache of not having a father. This past year, I witnessed a fatherless young man, age 14, ask a middle-age gentleman who he had just met if he was married. When the older man replied that he was happily married, the young man disappointedly replied that he had hoped that he was single, so he could marry his mom and be his dad. Such desperate longing for the love and guidance from a father is not usually expressed so plainly and openly, but it is manifested in the many troubles in our society. Kitty is a witness to one of those troubles in her honest and heartfelt account in this book.

For this, I thank her and ask God to bless her in promoting her book.